The End
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: Oliver croaks out a desperate "no" in a voice that is more a whining plea than anything else, but his words are ignored and then she realises this is it. Ra's has exhausted every way to hurt Oliver, except for the last one. His city is gone. His friends and family are dead. He has nothing more to live for. Nothing left to love. Except for her.


She feels more in the last five minutes of her life than she ever feels throughout the duration of her twenty-six years. Well, almost twenty-six. She almost made it. Her birthday isn't until the thirty-first of May, and she's pretty sure it's closer to Oliver's right now than her own. They've lost count of the days since they first arrived in Nanda Parbat. It's hard to tell when it's day or night when the place is always dark enough to require the light of far too many candles. Really, it's remarkable that they haven't experienced a fire by now. Then again, the walls are stone and the place is mostly made from sand, so there really isn't much that would burn.

She knows from the moment they bring her League robes that she's being lead to her death today.

Her and Oliver have been held captive by the League since she tried to break him out. The room they gave themselves to each other in, their sanctuary in this desert hell, becomes their prison. Their hands are bound to opposite bedposts, and each day they come to release Oliver and lead him away. Every day she fears he won't return, but he does. She hears his screams while he's gone, there are always more bruises, more wounds, and eventually his skin is more purpled grey than warm peach.

When they lead her away, they bathe her. It's uncomfortable. They watch her. But they don't hurt her, and she is hopefully for that until she catches the sympathetic glances of the young women who bathe her and she realises why.

She is not being pampered. She is being prepared.

They come on the eighth day with news. The majority of people in Starling City are dead. The virus killed them all. This hurts more knowing that they used the bodies of their friends and family as the catalysts for the virus. That night, when the room is dark and the candles have almost burned out, she cries. She cries for the newly restored Thea who wouldn't get to appreciate her life. She cries for John, who wouldn't get to hold his daughter again. She cries for Lyla and Sara, knowing that even if they made it out of the city before the virus took hold that they'd have to live without a huge part of their family. She cries for Roy, wherever he is, who would learn about their deaths on the news. She cries for Ray, who she knew would have tried to save the city until the very end. She cries for her mother, who would see the devastation of the city and know she'd never hear from her daughter again. She cries for Laurel, for Captain Lance, for everyone.

She cries for Oliver, who can't afford to shed a tear even when everything is so hopeless.

The next morning, they bring her the most beautiful fabrics. Oliver croaks out a desperate "no" in a voice that is more a whining plea than anything else, but his words are ignored and then she realises this is it. Ra's has exhausted every way to hurt Oliver, except for the last one.

His city is gone. His friends and family are dead. He has nothing more to live for. Nothing left to love.

Except for her.

She doesn't cry when they dress her in front of Oliver, or even when they lead her away. She knows that this isn't the last moment they'll have together. Ra's will want him to watch, and she's rewarded with her own accomplishment, at least, when she's lead outside to the sand dunes where she's met by the entire company of the League, Ra's himself and Oliver in his matching League robes.

She's forced to her knees in front of them both, but she doesn't bow her head. Ra's wants Oliver to suffer, so he will draw out her pain. Disobedience will only earn her a swifter death and that will safe them both pain. She has no respect for this monster.

"Take my life," Oliver insists, fighting his restraints. His voice sounds defeated, and that makes her give up hope altogether. Oliver is the only person now who could possibly save her. There is no one else left.

"I will," Ra's replies calmly. "After hers."

He gives a signal and Oliver's forced to his knees beside her. Before she can appreciate how much shorter than him she is even in this position, a hand on her neck pushes her down roughly. Her hands are restrained behind her back, and she groans in discomfort until she realises that this is it. Her last moments are to be filled with pain and she will never known comfort again.

Oliver is forced into a similar position, their heads lowered and facing one another on matching rock pedestals a foot off the ground. Ra's is holding an axe that looks far more ceremonial than practical, and a gasp escapes her. She cries then. The tears come out because she is twenty-five years old she is frightened to die.

"Look at me."

Oliver is calm in the acceptance of his death. His only reprieve now is that death will come for him quickly after he has to watch her die, but his eyes are darkened and tear-filled because he still has to watch that first. They have him pinned so he can't avoid the sight. They have no more fight left in them.

It is time to die.

She finds his eyes through the tears streaming from her own, and his lips tighten together as he bites at them. She'll never kiss them again. All the time they wasted, and all they had to show for it was one wonderful night. He'd kissed her like the world was ending, and now it was. Their world, at least. If they hadn't had that night, if she hadn't broken him free, if she'd just trusted him with the plan he later told her he had…

Sometimes the things you do for love are foolish.

"Don't be scared," he tells her, his eyes never leaving hers but she can see he's consciously aware of the weapon out her eyesight now. "Don't be scared, Felicity."

The way he says her name makes her cry harder. This is the last time they'll ever speak. She has so much to tell him, and no time. Ra's wouldn't pity them at the last moment. The intense kohl make-up they covered her in is slipping away from her eyes with every tear. "I don't want to die," she told him. "We were supposed to-"

"We will," he assured her, his voice dipped for only her ears. "This life has taught me that nothing ends with death. Wherever we go after this, we will find each other," he promises her. Maybe it's a wishful thought at the end of one's life, but she believes him. He has pinned his hopes that the people he has lost are in a better place, and he finally considers himself worthy enough to have earned a place there.

He would follow her anywhere.

"I love you," she croaks out when she sees Ra's come closer, and she can feel him standing right behind her.

"I love you too," he tells her, his voice thick but steady.

She feels the touch of sharp metal against her throat as Ra's prepares and she whimpers at the touch. "Oliver…"

"Close your eyes," he tells her, and she stares at him first for one long moment. The last time she will ever look at Oliver Queen. She wishes she could have looked at him with the love and adoration she wanted to show him so freely, but in the end all she has to offer him is fear. He's brave enough to hold back his tears until after she closes her eyes for the last time.

"Don't be scared," he tells her again, his voice filled with pain now. "It's not going to hurt. You won't feel it, I promise. It's not going to hurt. Just keep your eyes closed, Felicity."

The metal disappears, and she feels the air move.

This is it, she realises with an agonised gasp.

"Don't be scared."

She is scared. She is about to die. She will never see him again. She will never go home. There is nothing else left now but to die.

The air shifts again, Oliver's voice chokes. Oh, god, this is it.

"I love-"


End file.
